English Graduate Degree Program

What We Offer

Graduate
study in the Department of English presents an opportunity for you to work with
a dedicated and gifted faculty in small classes and to receive a noteworthy
level of personal attention. The close faculty-student mentoring
relationships that our small class sizes allow enables our graduate students to
develop their critical, creative, and professional skills to an extent
many larger programs cannot match. It's not unusual for our graduate
students to present papers at regional and national conferences, even
international ones, or to submit manuscripts and creative work for publication.
In recent years, grad students have traveled as far as Spain, Hawaii,
California, and Italy with financial support from Winthrop to present their
research and creative work—very few other programs our size can provide such
support.

Each member of the graduate faculty holds a Ph.D. and is an active scholar in
his or her field; the Department also includes widely-published fiction writers
and poets. At the same time, Winthrop is primarily a teaching institution, and
the Department of English is committed to teaching excellence. We note that
five of our members have won prestigious teaching awards and that teaching is
at the center of every faculty member's work.

Why Get a Master of Arts Degree in English?

A recent study published by the Association of Departments of English shows that more than half of faculty teaching English in collegiate settings in the United States have a stand-alone M.A. degree, so it is a valuable professional credential for college teaching. In recent years, about 40% of the students who receive an M.A. in English at Winthrop have also been admitted to doctoral programs, usually with assistantships. Others have gained employment teaching in two-year and four-year colleges and secondary education, as well as going on to law school, divinity school, and other professional programs, and to careers in editing, writing, business, and other professional fields. Whatever your career goals, we are happy to work with you to help you achieve them.

How to Apply

We have a rolling admissions deadline. If you seek an assistantship, we strongly encourage you to have your application complete before February 1 for assistantships beginning in the fall. We work hard to help students find assistantships and associateships, and other employment opportunities on campus, but these are usually highly competitive, so please send us your best work to be considered!